Every year I try to come up with the perfect homemade gift for my family members. I am not exaggerating when I say I have been doing this since I was eight years old. Fortunately, I think the gifts have gotten better as the years have progressed!

This year’s gift is called “A Gift For All Seasons.” Over this past year, I have developed an obsession with pillows. I love the ones that have a great saying on them, and I thought it might be fun to make a gift that includes one down pillow and six pillow covers that can be changed each season throughout the year.

There was no doubt in my mind that I would create these pillows with my Silhouette machine. So I did a little shopping on the Silhouette Design Store and found some fabulous designs to use for some of the pillows. The others I just designed myself using some very fun fonts.

Supplies Needed:

I bought the blank pillow covers at Ikea and HomeGoods. All pillows are 20” squares. The GURLI IKEA pillow cover costs $4.00, and the linen one I purchased from HomeGoods was $8.00. I was so excited to find these because they were very inexpensive, and I was thrilled not to have to make the pillow covers myself. The FJADRAR down pillow insert is also from IKEA, and it cost $6.00. I also bought a burlap bag to hold the pillow and covers from Amazon. It was less than $10.00.

Our one-hundred-year-old home is a farmhouse style home, so I used a lot of neutral colors in my designs. Obviously, you could use a lot brighter colors, especially for the spring- and summer-themed pillows.

I decided to include six seasonal pillow covers, which included Winter, Valentine’s Day, Spring, Summer, Fall (Thanksgiving), and Christmas. Here are the designs I selected.

Winter

The design is from the Silhouette Design Store (Design ID#12579), and it is called Winter Tree by Hero Arts.

Valentine’s Day

I designed this myself with the font Belacu, and the lettering size is 320.

Spring

The design is from the Silhouette Design Store (Design ID#45551), and it is called 3×4 Spring Journaling Cards Horizontal by Jennifer Wambach.

Summer

The design is from the Silhouette Design Store (Design ID#91015), and it is called Stacked Summer by Simple Stories.

Fall

The design is from the Silhouette Design Store (Design ID#227618), and it is called May Our Hearts be Full of Thanks and Giving by Kolette Hall.

Christmas

I designed this one myself using the font Walkway Bold in the size 110. Note the red “o” on Rudolph’s name.

Cutting The Designs

It’s so easy to download designs from the Silhouette Design Store. They end up right in your library, and you just double click on the design to start your project.

I enlarged all of the designs to fit my 12” x 16” cutting space so that they would cover the maximum amount on the pillow. The most important thing you have to remember when using heat transfer material is that you need to flip your words horizontally since you are cutting out the design backward. To do this, just select Object from the top menu, then select Mirror, and then Flip Horizontally. Be sure and select the heat transfer material (I used smooth) and set the blade to the suggested setting.

Then you are ready to cut!

Using a weeding tool, remove the excess heat transfer material from your design.

It’s easy to iron on the design to the pillow cover. Just measure to make sure the design is centered (I used my clear cutting mat!) and be sure to use a cloth to cover your design and a nonsteam, high setting on your iron. Carefully peel off the backing and iron the heat transfer with the cloth over it. You are all set!

I hope you enjoy making this gift as much as I did. It really is a gift for all seasons!

 

This blog post was contributed the blog My 100 Year Old Home.  It has been edited and republished with permission from the author.